The Metro Vancouver Labour Relations Bureau released a report today on its future mandate in light of pending key defections among its member municipalities.

Metro Vancouver

Metro Vancouver encompasses 21 municipalities, one electoral district and one treaty first nation.The resident population of Metro Vancouver is 2.3 million.

Metro Vancouver (still officially called the Greater Vancouver Regional District) was given a "labour negotiations and related ancillary services" function for its members back in 1973.

Metro Vancouver Labour Relations Bureau

The Metro Vancouver committee that exercises "the executive and administrative aspects" of the function is called the Metro Vancouver Labour Relations Bureau.

Municipalities within Metro Vancouver can choose whether they want to be participating members in the Bureau. Surrey, Richmond and Port Coquitlam are currently not participating members. And in the past two years, Burnaby, Vancouver, Delta and West Vancouver have given notice of withdrawal. read more »

The table below contains a comprehensive list of the upcoming workplace law (employment, labour, human rights, pensions, privacy and immigration) conferences in Canada in 2011. The full names of the service providers, and links to their sites, are at the bottom of the page.

Lancaster House is continuing its "Top 10" theme for audioconferences. This time its an audioconference on March 3, 2011 addressing The Top 10 Human Rights Cases. The cases and the issues they address (quoted from Lancaster) are: read more »

Here's the content of what the BC Teachers' Federation posted on their website today concerning their Charter/legal challenge of Bills 27 and 28 which were enacted by the BC Liberal government in 2002.

The new legislation ended the BCTF's ability to collective bargain class size and composition; guarantees of service from teacher-librarians, counsellors, learning assistance and other specialist teachers;, the length of the school day, and hours of instruction in the school year:

Legal counsel for the BCTF began opening arguments before Madam Justice Griffin in BC Supreme Court on November 15, in what promises to be a significant case determining the rights of teachers and their unions. The BCTF is challenging Bills 27 and 28, imposed by the BC Liberal government in 2002, because teachers believe the legislation violated their right to freedom of association under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. read more »

The UFCW Canada Local 1518 has posted an article on its website announcing what it is calling the first collective agreement in Canada specifically for migrant agricultural workers. The website goes on to note:

the migrant workers work at Sidhu & Sons Nursery in Abbotsford BC;

the workers are primarily from Mexico and Jamaica;

they come to Canada each year under the federal government's Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (CSAWP);

a unique feature of the collective agreement is that it is specifically for the migrant workers at Sidhu & Sons, rather than the entire workforce; and

"Interest Based Bargaining" (August 6, 2010) is the title of an article prepared by Mark Geiger, a lawyer at Blaney McMurtury in Ontario.

The article's summary states:

This article by Mark Geiger outlines the general principles and advantages that can be derived by use of Interest Based Bargaining. It compares the principles of this approach to the more traditional 'positional' bargaining employed in many organized bargaining settings, especially in unionized collective bargaining. Mark has been involved in a wide variety of bargaining for and with physicians, teachers, the film industry, hospitals, private and public schools, other health care providers, and a wide variety of private employers including in the manufacturing, service, construction and transportation sectors. Although this approach is difficult to implement, especially where traditional positional bargaining has been the norm, he argues the results that are achievable can make the effort well worth it.